Let Me Steal This Moment From You Now
by Precarious
Summary: Tonks regains a terrible memory. She wishes she didn't remember. And that she knew what to do about it now. About Sirius.
1. Rush

Summary: Tonks has an accident whilst cleaning at Grimmauld Place that lands her in St. Mungo's. All spells on her are reversed and she regains a terrible memory, one she'd have sooner left forgotten.

Disclaimer: I own neither Tonks nor Sirius, or any other Harry Potter characters that may be mentioned later on. I'm not making any money. Out of anything. :P

It was so silly. All this damned cleaning as Sirius calls it. Sirius. Sweet Merlin in Heaven.

I knocked over some cursed miniature fountain in a cabinet in the back of the sizeable Black library. The next thing I know I'm waking up in St. Mungo's, surrounded by curtains that I can just make out in the pale candle light from outside in the ward. I pull myself up slowly and grab for some water, my head pounding and my stomach churning wildly with the effort.

I discover over the next twelve hours that I've been suffering from a very nasty curse, lucky to survive, not to mention the torture of having to sit through my Mother repeatedly stating how she always knew my clumsiness would be the death of me, and what was that Weasley woman doing setting me cleaning work, and how I've just thrown her into the waiting arms of grey hair and wrinkles with how worried she's been.

Apparently, the best Healers have been working around the clock trying different treatments, for 3 weeks, and that eventually they've had to reverse every charm, jinx and curse that's ever been placed on me. This is supposed to be a very last resort as it can have very unpredictable and dangerous results. For instance, if you have had some unknown life saving spell performed on you that is not on your hospital records, this could potentially kill you. And even if this is not the case, the effect of so much magic vanishing from your body at the same time can cause heart failure. The jist of which is, I was in pretty bad shape.

Though thinking about it now, I'm not so sure I'm in such great shape now. Maybe I would have been better taking my chances with the coma.

It was on my first day of being discharged from St. Mungo's that it hit me.

I was in my part time room at Grimmauld Place pottering around, trying on different clothes and various exhauberant hair colours, when a rush of images blasted towards me, sounds blurring loudly in my ears making me feel dizzy and sick.

A man's body was pressing against me, someone had grunted my name whilst another whimpered and called out. A fire was crackling and hot and my stomach was churning and I'm very little and wearing a purple party dress I remember getting for my birthday once and then a lovely familiar smell warms my insides and I feel happy and ever so excited that I think I might be sick again and then there's stubble against my chin and cheek and my stomachs all tingling and then everything moves and I'm pressed against a kitchen counter and the edge is sticking hard into my back and I hurt and I'm frightened but excited slightly and I still feel sick and I can smell whiskey and sweat and then I can hear Sirius saying he promises and-

A sharp knock at the door brings me sharply conscious of my surroundings, and I realise that I have collapsed; perhaps rather loudly judging by Sirius' concerned voice behind the door. Sirius. I feel my insides move sharply.

Not a day has passed me by since I came home from St. Mungo's where I have not thought about Sirius. Where the mention of his name hasn't made my stomach fill with ice and lava simultaneously. Where the sight of him hasn't brought me out in a cold sweat and a blush and tingling at the pit of my stomach and the urge to be sick all at the same time. My head spins with a million conflicting thoughts swirling around my head, all trying to make themselves heard and their argument the most convincing.

What he did was wrong. But I can't for the life of me decide what I think about it. How I feel about it. And it's driving me insane. And he has no idea that I know.


	2. C'mon Darling, C'mon C'mon Angel

"I'm okay!" I sound too high-pitched, unnatural, and I have to calm down, to stop the blood thundering through my veins like crazed horses, or I won't be able to make him leave, and he has to, oh Merlin he has to.

"Sweetheart, you sound awful. What's happened? Is it Remus?" The concern in his voice, in relation to Remus, makes my head spin, and I know it's wrong, his concern doesn't fit, it just doesn't, there's a reason, and it's almost within my grasp, but as he knocks again it slips away, and panic replaces it, ripping through me, making me collapse against the door, trying to stop him coming in, but it spurs him on, making him think I am ill or gives him the excuse to-

Excuse to what? The rational side of my mind is beginning to resurface, fills me with warm memories of Sirius, with anger over the unfairness over the deck he has been dealt, a thousand positive emotions that I have never doubted.

I grasp the door handle and fling open the door, just in time for Sirius to catch me as I faint.

I'm lying on a bed, surrounded by warm muscled limbs, an inviting masculine scent fills my nose and I nuzzle instinctively and habitually closer, murmuring appreciatively under my breath, and then something stirs in the pit of my stomach and I lurch, and my mind lurches too, half formed memories crashing on me again, hands on me, pinning me down, hands, aristocratically long fingered, but strong and large, encircling me, pressing me closer, forcing kisses from me, but then I am kissing him, straddling his lap, candle glow illuminating his Azkaban haunted face, suddenly alive and bright, free of the dark thunderous cloud that normally sullied his good looks, and then I'm here, now and he's here, liquid silver eyes consuming me and I don't know what to think, and before I can stop myself I kiss him, kiss him to see if a sense of sweeping déjà vu will wash over me, if it will make me remember everything, make me understand and make this damned mist in my mind dissipate, but it makes my head swim more, my breathe grow so shallow I feel sure I will pass out, and my stomach burn with I don't know what, but it is as if I'm possessed and I don't like it-

But that's a lie, I love it, deep down somewhere in the pit of my stomach, of my soul, of Merlin knows where, I love the feeling of danger, of the darkness lurking behind his eyes, the stubble grazing my skin, his scent filling me up, encircling me and trapping me to him, his body bearing down on me, his hands, those hands from half forgotten memories, pressing me down into the bed, his teeth grazing my bottom lip, my neck, the scent of cigarettes faintly lingering on him, and firewhiskey, of cologne and him, of that smell that almost sent me spinning back through my mind, but I clutched at his shirt, clung on as if my life depended on it, or if not my life, my sanity.

And then the shirt is gone, and I can see the scars from Azkaban, the tattoos, the serial number branded across his torso, and the familiar anger at what had happened to him filled me, rising in my chest like bile, and the thought of questioning why it was familiar, when had I seen Sirius' chest so intimately was squashed down and beaten by the aching between my thighs, the way my stomach muscles twitched as his hand brushed the skin below my belly button, the low growl Sirius emits in my ear as my hand rubs him through his jeans. The low growl I know I have heard, in a situation a polar opposite in so many ways to this one, but I push it away, the déjà vu that nudges me towards an awful memory, because this is easier, closer, because this makes me breathless with excitement.

And Sirius is on top of me, kissing me, pinning me, his hands are fisting in my hair, red now, and his eyes are darker, and I catch a glimpse of something, something that sends me flying back no matter how hard I try to cling to the present, and I'm-

In the kitchen, alone with Sirius, and they're all in Diagon Alley, picking out school things, and there's no hope, no hope at all, and he's shouting, waving his hands around, one swinging dangerously close to my face, and panic is rising and rising in my throat, I can see the hinge coming loose, the wrongness of the timing, Harry is imminently leaving for Hogwarts and he is trapped here, useless and-

He's towering over me, calling me a slut, calling me everything, and he's right, and then my face is stinging, and I realise he's hit me, and then so does he, and he's revolted with himself but it's too late now, he's thrown himself over the precipice now and there's no going back, and he's kissing me, kissing me hard, not like he used to, but with a malice, a desperation that's frightening and-

I'm under Sirius, in my bedroom, and he's stroking my face, kissing me, asking me where I've gone, if I'm alright, and he's rolling us over, and I'm lying on his chest, staring up into molten silver, wondering, wondering if it can be true, if these glimpses are memories, or just torturous echoes from the curse I was under, and I want to believe, I have to believe that's what they are, I have to.

Because sometimes it seems there is no good to be gleamed from knowing the truth, and I hate myself for saying it, for thinking it, for burying my flashbacks, and I knew really that's what they were, but I wanted... I wanted him, as I had before, and I knew something was missing, some feeling or event other than whatever happened in that kitchen was missing, but I chose the easy option instead, and I am ashamed at how easily I did so.


End file.
